berg80
Diamond Member
- Oct 28, 2017
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The first Trump administration sparked a great deal of discussion about flaws in the constitutional design—that the Constitution did not provide adequate checks in response to a demagogue. Another way of looking at things, though, is that the Constitution does provide such tools. The problem was that legal and political elites repeatedly refused to use them.
Press coverage following the election has tended to frame Trump’s victory as a populist mandate, a rejection by voters of eggheaded ideas about democracy and the rule of law. This is misleading, and not just because the margin of Trump’s victory was relatively narrow in historical terms. The political scientist Larry Bartels has argued that in most recent instances of supposed anti-democratic, populist takeovers, the incoming autocratic leader was not actually riding a wave of mass public discontent with democracy but, rather, secured office on orthogonal concerns—like economic worries or frustration with the incumbent party—before using their newfound authority to chip away at democratic institutions. The real danger to democracy, Bartels argues, is not the voters, but the political elites who fail to stop autocratic backsliding in its path. Democracy, in his phrasing, “erodes from the top.” (Couldn't disagree more. The voters are responsible for elected officials who abdicated their responsibility to fulfill their oath to defend the Constitution)
With this in mind, the unwillingness or inability of America’s governing institutions to make use of the available constitutional tools takes on an additional significance. It is asking too much to hope that everyday citizens will be able to, on their own, closely track the decay of democratic norms and protections and formulate well-thought-through opinions on which presidential candidate is best positioned to protect them. It may be asking too much to expect that voters will choose rationally at all. (Readers may be familiar with a paper by Bartels and his co-author Christopher Achen arguing that Woodrow Wilson lost his home state of New Jersey in his 1916 reelection campaign not because of disagreement with Wilson’s policies among the state’s residents, but because of a spate of shark attacks along the Jersey Shore.)
How American Institutions Failed to Meet the Moment
The whole article is a good read not matter what your politics are. From my perspective the most obvious failure falls on AG Garland for applying institutional norms in his approach to Jan. 6, despite it being the most abnormal circumstance imaginable. A treasonous act by a sitting prez.
Press coverage following the election has tended to frame Trump’s victory as a populist mandate, a rejection by voters of eggheaded ideas about democracy and the rule of law. This is misleading, and not just because the margin of Trump’s victory was relatively narrow in historical terms. The political scientist Larry Bartels has argued that in most recent instances of supposed anti-democratic, populist takeovers, the incoming autocratic leader was not actually riding a wave of mass public discontent with democracy but, rather, secured office on orthogonal concerns—like economic worries or frustration with the incumbent party—before using their newfound authority to chip away at democratic institutions. The real danger to democracy, Bartels argues, is not the voters, but the political elites who fail to stop autocratic backsliding in its path. Democracy, in his phrasing, “erodes from the top.” (Couldn't disagree more. The voters are responsible for elected officials who abdicated their responsibility to fulfill their oath to defend the Constitution)
With this in mind, the unwillingness or inability of America’s governing institutions to make use of the available constitutional tools takes on an additional significance. It is asking too much to hope that everyday citizens will be able to, on their own, closely track the decay of democratic norms and protections and formulate well-thought-through opinions on which presidential candidate is best positioned to protect them. It may be asking too much to expect that voters will choose rationally at all. (Readers may be familiar with a paper by Bartels and his co-author Christopher Achen arguing that Woodrow Wilson lost his home state of New Jersey in his 1916 reelection campaign not because of disagreement with Wilson’s policies among the state’s residents, but because of a spate of shark attacks along the Jersey Shore.)
How American Institutions Failed to Meet the Moment
The whole article is a good read not matter what your politics are. From my perspective the most obvious failure falls on AG Garland for applying institutional norms in his approach to Jan. 6, despite it being the most abnormal circumstance imaginable. A treasonous act by a sitting prez.
